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Merging the endless quantity of forums to something understandable for Microsoft Customers

Discussion Merging the endless quantity of forums to something understandable for Microsoft Customers

  • Wednesday, February 08, 2012 10:52 AM
     
     
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    If we were looking in past to the newsgroups on Usenet we saw endless Microsoft Newsgroups. Most were seldom used and never got replies because nobody was looking to those. 
    In an extrapolation of this we see this in the Microsoft Forums (Some newsgroups names are used which where already wrong in the newsgroups but those are created as forums). Endless forums where persons seldom get an answer, but also many confusion by Microsoft customers which forum is for what. And then as result some extra active moderators think their duty is to move the questions around and as last to the Off Topic forum (which is currently one of the most active forums on MSDN). 
    Why not move those empty forums together with the more general ones and also move forum with nothing saying names like "language" (which were the most active C# and VB newsgroup with wrong names) to the general ones (which was the way they were used in Newsgroups). 
    Also try than to give a good description for a forum which is understandable for users from the forum and not made by a person who is the forum administrator or moderator simply because it is his job to create or administrate those forums. (The shorter the description the better)

    Some people think the more special forums there are the better customers can find those. However, the result is that nobody looks to their questions and they get a very bad Microsoft experience. (This is what the newsgroups has taught us)

    Success
    Cor



     

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  • Friday, February 10, 2012 5:45 PM
     
     
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    I think the problem starts when forums are created by a development team.

    When there is a new product about to come out in maybe six months (and which is already in public beta - just) they are very keen to have forums that are just for that version of the product because this means they only need to look there to monitor posts on it.

    Several months down the line (typically a couple of months after RTM) the development team lose all interest in the forums and they (the forums) are left to their own devices.

    At that point it would be a good idea if those forums were either abandoned or merged with the forums for the previous product versions thus making it easier for users to find the correct forum for their product. [Yes, I know they would then be needed to be trained to say what product they have in every post]

    Unfortunately it seems that while the development team are keen on acquiring a new set of forums for the new product version they don't think about the needs of forum users when they (the development team) have gone on to new and better things.

    -----------------

    I'll give a couple of examples.

    There is an accessibility forum (accessibility = catering for the needs of the physically challenged) for the pre-SP (=SharePoint) 2010 products but none for the SP 2010 products. So any questions on accessibility for SP 2010 get lost in the mass of general questions in the SP 2010 forums.

    The are BDC, BI and Excel Services pre-SP 2010 forums but there isn't even a single BI forum for those kinds of questions in the SP 2010 set of forums. So again all BI questions get lost among the mass of Admin (and General - people love General) SP 2010 forums.

    Unfortunately fixing this now would mean THREE sets of SP forums (2010; pre-2010; any version) rather than the two sets that are causing problems now. So that wouldn't help at all.

    SP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx
    WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx
    Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters


    • Edited by Mike Walsh FIN Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:24 AM spelling
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  • Sunday, February 19, 2012 11:59 AM
     
     
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    I'd like to add my two-penneth worth here. I am a complete Sharepoint noob and have been searching for a forum on which to ask a question about Excel Services' REST API in Office 365. I stumbled into SharePoint - Excel Services (pre-SharePoint 2010) via  Excel Services Blogs, Forums, and Resources (Sharepoint 2010) and Excel Services Resource Center | SharePoint 2010.

    Let me make that clear - two Sharepoint 2010 articles on MSDN pointed me to a Pre-Sharepoint-2010 forum. Clearly this is (and I apologise if this sounds rude but I think it is warranted) utterly stupid.

    As a Sharepoint noob I am completely clueless about where to post my Excel Services REST API questions. I will be at the upcoming MVP Summit - maybe I'll nip into the Sharepoint sessions to offer some errr...constructive feedback here!

    Regards
    JT

    P.S. Thank to Mike for helping me out over on the SharePoint - Excel Services (pre-SharePoint 2010) forum and for directing me over here.

    ObjectStorageHelper<T> – A WinRT utility for Windows 8 | http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/ | @jamiet | About me
    Jamie Thomson

     
  • Sunday, February 19, 2012 12:26 PM
     
     
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    Oh, and the only forums at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/sharepoint are labelled (Pre-Sharepoint 2010). And I ended up there by doing a websearch for "Sharepoint forums"

    WTF!!

    ObjectStorageHelper<T> – A WinRT utility for Windows 8 | http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/ | @jamiet | About me
    Jamie Thomson

     
  • Sunday, February 19, 2012 6:51 PM
     
     
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    I don't want to confuse you even more, but if your problem is specifically because of you using Office 365 then there's a forum for the previous name of the SharePoint part of that product - i.e. the forum for (Office) SharePoint Online-

    As fas I I know that forum covers not only the original SharePoint Online product (which I think was based on SharePoint 2007) but also the Office 365 SharePoint component.

    (I have (had) neither so I don't go there)

    Mike

    SP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx
    WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx
    Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters

     
  • Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:28 PM
     
     
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    Actually Mike there are two sets of forums for Sharepoint Online as well so your theory of a new set for every version is valid there too:

    Office 365:

    http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/151/categories.aspx

    Sharepoint Online (BPOS pre-Office365)

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicessharepoint

    Whats worse in this case is the latter takes questions for Office365 which rarley get answered.  and the former only takes Office365 questions since you have to login as your O365 identity.  Personally I like the different forums for different versions in some cases.  Like there is so much of SP2010 that just doesn't pertain to 2007 and vise versa.  Isn't it posible to have folders by version within a single forum?  The biggest prob I think is the Product pages having incorrect links to forums.  Everytime I'm looking at MSDN docs for SP2010 and need more info, I go to references page and click the forum link and wind up in (pre-2010).  I'm guessing most of the documentation is a direct copy from prior versions and editors either don't check the links or are unaware of the separation of forums.  Then you Bing it and still wind up with pre-2010.

    my 2-cents,

    Josh

     
  • Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:49 PM
     
     
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    Thanks for the reply.

    This is actually worse than the usual situation because clearly the community.office365.com forum won't be listed in the list of TechNet (or even MSDN) forums so many posters asking about SP within Office 365 won't be aware of it. ("Worse" because the SP 2010 forums are at least listed in the TechNet forums along with the pre-SP 2010 forums even if they are at an illogical ["M" (!?) section] position in that list.)

    Hence those users use of the pre-Office 365 forum for SharePoint Online while it seems that the experts able to answer questions *are* aware of the community.office365.com forum and therefore ignore SP 2010 questions in the Sharepoint Online (BPOS pre-Office365) forum.

    SP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx
    WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx
    Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters

     
  • Thursday, October 25, 2012 8:03 PM
     
     
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    Here we go again.  All the sharepoint forums just changed names and again.  Suck part is the old urls don't even redirect.  how many blogs and threads now have broken links?  I'm callin it a day.  |:(
     
  • Friday, October 26, 2012 9:59 AM
     
     
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    I tried a link from your activity list, and it seems to me that links to specific threads redirect, links to forums don't (though the forum links are not exactly broken, they just tell you the forum has moved).

    For example,

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010customization/thread/64e3bb7e-305c-433e-8753-f1cc3ee4e2fa

    will redirect to:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointcustomizationprevious/thread/64e3bb7e-305c-433e-8753-f1cc3ee4e2fa

    And

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010customization

    will just tell you "Threads in this forum have moved to ..."

     
  • Friday, October 26, 2012 1:08 PM
     
     
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    Try these:

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointcustomization/thread/9846f63f-f83a-4842-b9a5-d25a730aa3c2/

    here are several pages of search results on bing that go no where:

    http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22sharepoint2010programming%22+site%3Asocial.technet.microsoft.com&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC

     
  • Friday, October 26, 2012 1:24 PM
     
     
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    Okay, it looks like they are attempting to correct past follies by renaming the versioned sp forums like so:

    SharePoint RTM version General Discussions and Questions forum:

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointgeneral/

    General questions about SharePoint prior version can be answered here:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointgeneralprevious

    and for earlier versions here:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointgenerallegacy

    If they stick to this method, and threads redirect when moved then that would be great.  We'll see what happens when they create forums for vNext.

    Now if they would fix the redirects for forums that were combined then we'd be getting somewhere.